Author(s): Bruce Connew

NZ History | Secondhand | NZ Non-Fiction

Finalist - 2003 Montana NZ Book Awards, Lifestyle and Contemporary Culture category. Tanzania's president Julius Nyerere once remarked: 'whilst other people can aim at reaching the moon. ..our present aim must be directed at reaching the villages. ' Volunteer Service Abroad was formed in 1962, and in the last forty years has sent some 2000 volunteers abroad to over thirty countries, for work on many different projects. Pacific countries have hosted volunteers since VSA began. Education has been a particular focus of these assignments, along with agriculture and health. These small island states face many challenges, from the size of their economies to the pressures of globalisation. Recent strife in Bougainville has added post-war recovery to VSA's commitment in the Pacific. Volunteers have also been in Asia since 1962. From the 1980s, Bhutan has both welcomed VSA projects and sent students to New Zealand under the Colombo Plan. More recently, volunteers in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have been involved in a mix of assignments, working alongside communities that have only recently emerged from decades of war. This year VSA's newest country programme opened in East Timor. VSA's work in Southern Africa began in 1986, reflecting a national commitment to the region at both an official and a community level. Issues addressed by volunteers in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Tanzania have included voter education, AIDs, rural and urban development, education, health and small business development. New Zealand Abroad marks forty years of volunteer commitment in developing countries. VSA invited eight leading photographers to set VSA work in context. The land, the people, their needs, and the work of New Zealand volunteers are the subject of some 350 superb full-colour photographs. Writers Trevor Richards, Jeremy Rose and Margot Schwass document the work of VSA in fourteen countries with vivid detail.

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